The final scenes of The Mandalorian season 3, episode 8 seemingly confirm that Din Djarin will serve as a replacement for Cara Dune in a previously canceled Star Wars show. After putting an end to Moff Gideon’s cloning plans and destroying his base on Mandalore, Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin was shown in an epilogue of sorts, rounding out his and Grogu’s story for the season.
One of these scenes involved Din reuniting with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s Carson Teva, in a conversation that hinted at the potential story for The Mandalorian season 4.
As reported by Variety, writer and co-creator of the show Jon Favreau revealed that The Mandalorian season 4 has already been written. This means that the ending of The Mandalorian season 3, episode 8 was all intentionally placed to lead into future stories set in this sect of the Star Wars universe.
With the one scene with Carson Teva, The Mandalorian has all but confirmed that the show’s next outing will be delving even further into the plot points originally intended for one of Star Wars canceled TV shows.
Which Show Is Replaced By The Mandalorian Season 4?
Taken from Whats On Disney+, the canceled TV show in question is Rangers of the New Republic, which was rumored to focus on the exploits of Cara Dune as a newly-anointed New Republic marshal. However, after Gina Corano was fired from Lucasfilm, the show was seemingly scrapped.
Despite the show’s cancelation, The Mandalorian season 3 incorporated some of the elements intended for Rangers of the New Republic into its story, through the subplots of Elia Kane, Dr. Pershing, and Carson Teva. With Mando’s visit to the Adelphi bar filled with Easter eggs in Mandalorian season 3, episode 8, The Mandalorian season 4 is now confirmed to even further cover these canned plot points.
As per the conversation with Carson Teva, Din Djarin is reverting to his bounty-hunting ways – only this time, with a twist. After he feuds with Moff Gideon and the Empire, Mando told Teva that he will unofficially serve the New Republic, attempting to hunt down Imperial warlords in the Outer Rim.
The tentative bond that has been set up between Teva and Mando across three seasons of The Mandalorian means the former likes the idea of the deal, setting up The Mandalorian season 4 as the pseudo-Rangers of the New Republic.
Its Subplot Should Be Put Featured In The Mandalorian Season 4
The core plot of Rangers of the New Republic was expected to center on the titular organization discovering that the Imperial Remnants were more coherent than first thought.
Therefore, The Mandalorian season 4 must include the same plot. The Mandalorian season 3, episode 7 already established the Shadow Council that is serving Thrawn as a means of restoring the Empire’s power, something that eventually transforms into both the First Order and Final Order from the sequel trilogy.
This means that the story of The Mandalorian season 4 should be about Din Djarin taking down these Imperial Remnants, which would benefit the overarching story of this section of the Star Wars timeline.
If this was to be the case, it would set Din Djarin and Grogu up to be part of Filoni’s newly-announced Star Wars film. The film is set to culminate the story of The Mandalorian and its respective spin-offs, likely in a battle between the New Republic and Grand Admiral Thrawn.
If The Mandalorian season 4 does indeed feature Mando thwarting the Empire’s plans and potentially leading him to discover Thrawn himself, it would position the story of the show to not only incorporate Rangers of the New Republic elements, but perfectly set up Din Djarin’s theatrical debut in the process.
Rangers of the New Republic and The Mandalorian Season 4
Lucasfilm seemingly did fold plans for the scrapped Rangers of the New Republic into The Mandalorian seasons 3 and 4, as well as Filoni’s upcoming untitled feature film centered on the New Republic era of the Mando timeline. Disney’s Lucasfilm has yet to officially renew The Mandalorian for season 4, but Favreau has confirmed that he’s already written the fourth season. And now we know it will follow Din — and his Mandalorian apprentice Din Grogu — across the galaxy as hired guns for the Rangers of the New Republic.
Recently, Kathleen Kennedy spoke with Empire Magazine ahead of the release of the new Disney+ series “Star Wars: The Book Of Boba Fett” and was asked about the “Rangers of the New Republic” series, to which she replied: “We’d never written any script or anything on that”
When asked if the plans for the series will just be likely to be absorbed into other series, she said: “Some of that will figure into future episodes, I’m sure, of the next season of The Mandalorian.”
These comments from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy would seem to indicate that as many have expected, “Rangers Of The New Republic” isn’t going ahead and will instead be incorporated into the next season of “The Mandalorian”, which is filming at the moment or possibly the fourth season.